Movies & TV

If you’re excited for the Tribeca Film Festival reveal of the Richard Pryor documentary, this right here is something that is equally highly anticipated.

Development for the legendary comedian’s biopic continues to shift and take form, as the flick has made another intriguing adjustment that is sure to make fans and cinephiles alike take notice.

According to the guys over at Deadline, Forest Whitaker (yes, the Academy Award-winning actor) has been tapped alongside Pryor’s widow, Jennifer Pryor, to replace Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) as the film’s director through Whitaker’s production company, Significant Productions.

Previous incarnations of this developing project had plenty of names attached to it, such as Martin Scorsese, Eddie Murphy, Mike Epps, Damon and Marlon Wayans to name a few. It still remains unclear if Condon’s leading choice, Marlon Wayans (A Haunted House), will still portray the outrageous comedian in Whitaker’s revamped script.

Wayans himself has admitted that he wants to show that he “can do more,” and admitted such to the Los Angeles Times in 2010 in an attempt to calm indifferent feelings about him filling the shoes of Pryor. “Look, I want to be able to make the stupidest movies ever, because they make people laugh and they make money. But that’s not all I want to do. And I think I’ve proved to some people — the ones paying attention — that I can do more.”

In a bit of interesting side-news, comedian Mike Epps will be playing Richard Pryor in the forthcoming Nina Simone biopic, Nina, which stars Zoe Saldana in the title role.